Majority party MP drafts tougher bill on high treason

The new draft is aimed primarily against law enforcers and financial officials who act in the interests of foreign nations and suggests life in prison as a maximum punishment.

The amendments to the criminal code are similar to those that had
already existed in modern Russia, but were canceled in 1997 under
pressure from the United States, the author of the bill, MP
Yevgeniy Fyodorov (United Russia), told the Izvestia daily.

The new bill returns responsibility for “actions that inflict
damages to the country’s sovereignty, inviolability and
territorial integrity.” Such deeds would qualify as high
treason. In the same draft law, Fyodorov suggests raising the
maximum punishment for high treason from the current 20 years to
life in prison.

According to Fyodorov, the need for a stricter norm has appeared
after the recent events in Ukraine and the reactions to them by
some of Russia’s politicians and state officials. He did not give
any particular names.

“It is wrong to expect that the new bill would punish certain
citizens who hold pro-opposition talks in their kitchens. The new
norm would target mainly state officials, who, through
cooperation with their foreign colleagues, allow actions harmful
for the national sovereignty, or detrimental to the territorial
integrity of the state. Other potential targets are financial
officials who act in the interests of foreign states,” the
parliamentarian told the newspaper.

Fyodorov noted that, apart from formal changes in the
legislation, it was important that the new norm was strictly
executed. He said that a similar act exists in current Ukrainian
law, but is not enforced in reality because under it all leaders
of the recent coup d’état should have been sentenced to between
20 and 25 years for damaging their nation’s sovereignty by
putting Ukraine under the influence of the West.

According to the Russian MP, similar laws exist in the world’s
leading countries. For example, the definition of high treason in
the German Criminal Code also includes jeopardizing the
territorial integrity of the country.

Presently, the Russian Criminal Code has an article against calls
for the country’s breakup. Such actions are punishable with fines
of up to 300,000 rubles (about $8,300), or prison terms of up to
five years. The law was passed in late 2013 as a reaction to the
position of several media outlets.